


Left Brain's Grocery List

by firstdegreefangirl



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Buck has no idea why he loves this idiot, Domestic Bliss, Domestic Fluff, Grocery Shopping, M/M, based on some of my favorite standup comedy, but he does, he can't buy groceries either, not only can Eddie not cook
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:33:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25732159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firstdegreefangirl/pseuds/firstdegreefangirl
Summary: “Fine, but only because I love you both. It’s got to be a short list. Express lane short. Some of us have to work today.”Buck gives Eddie a grocery list. He thinks he's Eddie-proofed it, but he's proven wrong.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Comments: 44
Kudos: 361





	Left Brain's Grocery List

**Author's Note:**

> Based on this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YFRUSTiFUs&t=150s and the subsequent conversation with Eli where I pointed out that it's so perfectly Buck and Eddie
> 
> (you should wait to watch the video until after you read though, because hers is MASTERFUL even once you know the punchline)

“Hey, how’s Chris doing on lunchbox desserts?” Buck steps away from the fridge with an arm full of ham sandwich ingredients and Eddie looks up from where he’s checking through the fifth-grade agenda he’s expected to sign off on every day. 

“Um … two left, I think? One, after today.” He cranes his neck, as if looking at the outside of the opaque cake carrier on the counter will give him the answer. 

Before Buck moved in, Christopher usually had prepackaged snack cakes for desserts, unless Abuela had sent leftovers with Eddie after Sunday lunch. But now that they’re all living together, the desserts are Buck’s special contribution to Chris’ lunches. Eddie writes a little note on a paper napkin, Buck makes a batch of some kind of treat every week and slips one in a baggie every day. 

“Cool, I figured we were running low. I’ll make a batch of something while I’m off today. Ooh, you think he’d like those orange soda cupcakes I saw the other day?” 

“Baby, if you make it, I’m sure he’ll love whatever you come up with.” Eddie stands up, tucking the agenda away and zipping Chris’ backpack before crossing the room to wrap his arms around Buck. “If you haven’t noticed, he’s kind of your biggest fan. Next to me, of course.” 

They share a short kiss before Buck steps away and slides his phone out of his pocket. 

“Hang on, no distractions. You’re taking him to school today, right? Can you stop at the store on your way back? I think I need a few extra ingredients, and this way I can tell him you helped without making him think we want to poison him.” 

“Asking me for a favor and insulting my cooking all in one breath? Nice work, Buck.” Eddie pulls the dish towel from the front of the stove and swats Buck’s hip. 

“You know I’m right.” Buck rolls his eyes, scrolling through his saved Facebook links until he finds the recipe he’s looking for. 

“Fine, but only because I love you both. It’s got to be a short list. Express lane short. Some of us have to work today.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Buck reaches for an envelope lying in the pile of junk mail on the kitchen island and scribbles out a list, pulling a couple of cabinets open to double check that he’s written down everything he needs. “That’s it, this is everything you need. We’ve got enough of two whole ingredients, but this should give me enough for a couple of weeks, at least.” 

Eddie takes the list from his hand, folding it over and tucking it in his pocket. He calls over his shoulder to Chris, reminding him that it’s time to get his shoes on. 

He kisses Buck goodbye, even though they both know he’ll be back home before he goes into the station, and follows Chris out to the truck. 

As soon as the door closes, Buck turns toward the sink and starts filling the basin with hot, soapy water. There aren’t many dishes to wash, but it’ll kill some time before Eddie gets back and he needs to start preheating the oven. 

Once the dishes are washed (and dried, and put away, which Buck hardly ever does until Eddie reminds him at least twice), he gets out the mixer and bowls he’ll need to make the cupcake batter. Eddie still isn’t back, so he puts the cupcake wrappers in the muffin tins, but after that he’s out of prep work he can do without ingredients. 

Finally, he steps back from the counter and checks his phone. It’s been close to an hour since they left, and Buck wonders what could be taking so long. There’s nothing too special on the list, nothing that should be very difficult for Eddie to find on the shelves. And the list is only six items long; how much time could it possibly take to drop Chris at school, pick up six things in the express lane and come back home? 

45 minutes is an awfully long time for all of that, especially considering that the store is right on the way home. Still, it hasn’t been long enough that Buck feels warranted in his alarm. So he ignores it, doesn’t let himself worry about Eddie. He’d have called if something were wrong, or the very worst case scenario, Buck knows that he’s Eddie’s emergency contact, so if he had been in an accident, the hospital would have called right away. 

He’s just starting to consider a walk around the block to kill some time when he hears Eddie’s truck pull back into the driveway. The amount of relief that sags out of him is surprising, considering that Eddie has hardly been gone an hour, and Buck is never this keyed up when they work opposite shifts and go two whole days without seeing each other for more than 15 minutes. 

But Eddie is home now and things are good. Buck pulls the front door open only to see him coming up the driveway, two grocery bags hanging from one wrist. He’s holding the shopping list in the other hand and scowling when Buck opens the screen door to let him into the house. 

“Express lane my ass, Buckley.” He rolls his eyes, dropping the bags onto the floor just inside the front door and pushing the envelope against Buck’s chest. “There’s more in the truck, hang on.” 

Buck watches Eddie walk back down the driveway, then stares at the sacks on the floor. 

There’s _more?_ The list only has six things on it, so he’s not sure why it’s going to take Eddie more than one trip. Still, the bags need to be moved out of the foyer, so Buck picks them up and takes them into the kitchen, unpacks the contents onto the table. 

The first bag is almost empty, just a box of unsalted butter sticks. 

Makes sense, those were on the list. Buck is quietly impressed to see that Eddie even remembered to check that the butter is unsalted this time, instead of just throwing the first box he could find into the cart. 

He reaches into the second plastic sack and pulls out three dozens of eggs. 

_Interesting._ He’d only asked for one dozen, but he’d rather have too many eggs than not enough. 

“Must have been a sale,” He mutters as he stacks the cartons carefully away from the edge of the table and starts trying to figure out how many ways he can serve eggs without Christopher noticing that he’s eating considerably more of them than usual. 

Before he has an answer, though, he hears the front door swing open. Eddie leaves again, but the door hits against whatever he’s just dropped off before it can close. 

Buck follows the sounds back to the doorway and sees two gallons of milk sitting by the door. 

It’s … more milk than he’d asked for, but he thinks they should have room enough in the refrigerator for it. Besides, with all three of them eating cereal for breakfast at least a couple days a week, it’s not like the extra gallon will go to waste. 

He figures Eddie was probably just trying to plan ahead, avoid a second store run later in the week, just to buy one jug of milk. 

Still, this is a lot of trips back and forth to the car for just six ingredients. He's barely gotten the milk put away when the door bounces off of the wall and there’s a twin set of dull thuds before Eddie’s footsteps retreat. 

“Here’s your sugar,” he calls over his shoulder as Buck rounds the corner again. 

There are two grocery sacks sitting there, handles slumped over from where Eddie had set them down. 

“All of that is sugar?” But the screen door is latched, and Eddie is out of earshot. Besides, Buck answers his own question when he picks the bags up. The weight isn’t much, given how often he works out, but it’s a lot more than a bag of sugar should weigh. And why are there two grocery sacks for one bag of sugar? Surely Eddie didn’t spill the sugar into two sacks? 

Buck sets the sacks on the table and unloads two bags of sugar from each of them. 

Four bags of sugar. 

16 pounds of sugar. 

What was Eddie _thinking?_

Buck squeezes his eyes shut, hopes that this is all some sort of weird fantasy he’s thinking up while Eddie is still at the supermarket. But when he opens them again, there’s still four bags of sugar, three dozen eggs and a pound of butter on the table. He doesn't have to check the fridge to know that there are two gallons of milk sitting inside the door. 

He sighs and reaches for the envelope, trying to figure out how he wound up here when he wrote a list of six ingredients for Eddie to pick up. 

1 1 lb box butter sticks, unsalted 

2 Gallon of whole milk 

3 Dozen large eggs 

4 Sugar, 4 lb bag 

5 Flour, 4 lb bag 

6 6 pk orange soda bottles 

Suddenly, everything makes sense. One box of butter, two gallons of milk, three dozen eggs, four bags of sugar … 

He’d numbered the list to make sure Eddie could use the express lane. But Eddie bought the numbered _quantities_ of everything he’d asked for. 

Which means that he’s on his way back through the house right now with … 

“Five sacks of flour?” Buck sets the envelope down and looks up as Eddie drops three grocery bags unceremoniously onto the table. He swats his hands against the front of his jeans to wipe his hands off and rolls his eyes. 

“Yes! This was not an in and out trip!” 

Before Buck can say anything else, Eddie’s gone back out to the truck, the screen door clicking closed behind him. 

Buck looks at the list again and sighs. In the next breath, the sheer absurdity of the situation hits him, and he’s stifling laughter as he pulls a couple of chairs out so there’s enough room for everything and jogs out to meet Eddie at the truck. 

When he gets there, Eddie’s struggling to hold three six-packs of orange soda in each hand. Buck reaches out to take half of them, and he's sure the amusement is written clear across his face. 

“Eddie … I …" 

“Stop.” Eddie rolls his eyes, but Buck can tell that he’s not actually upset. “I want you to know something: I figured out what I’d done. I thought it was a weird list, but then I figured it out.” He’s following Buck back up the driveway, catching the door with his foot so they can both get inside and set the bottles down. As soon as his hands are empty, Eddie rolls his shoulders back and Buck winces at the audible popping sound. 

“Then why didn’t you …" He doesn’t even get to finish the question before Eddie is pulling out a third chair and dropping his weight into it, shoulders sagging with defeat and resignation. 

“She was already ringing up the six-packs.” 

Buck comes around the table and stands behind Eddie, rubbing his shoulders gently and bending down to press a soft kiss into his hair. 

“We’re going to have to find a new grocery store, aren’t we?” 

“We?” Eddie tilts his chin up to kiss Buck on the mouth. “I’m never buying your groceries again. You make the list, you do the shopping.” 

* * *

Two weeks later, Buck pulls into the parking lot of the grocery store on the way home from the station. He’d briefly considered going somewhere else, but all he needs is a box of Frosted Flakes so he doesn’t have to get up in time to cook breakfast in the morning, and the next store is 15 minutes in the other direction. 

Besides, what are the odds that he gets the same cashier as Eddie had, and that the cashier remembers that he and Eddie have shopped there together, _and_ that the cashier had paid enough attention to Eddie’s purchase to remember it? 

So he makes a quick stop by the cereal aisle and drops the Frosted Flakes on the belt of the express lane, waits for it to roll forward far enough that he can step up and smile at the cashier. 

She asks him how his day is going, but there’s something in her expression that he can’t put his finger on until they’re waiting for his credit card payment to go through. 

“Aren’t you usually in here with that other firefighter too? And the little kid with the … glasses?” Buck watches her stumble on how to describe Chris, but doesn’t say anything about it. 

“Yeah, that’s my family.” He smiles, like he always does when he’s reminded that he really _is_ part of Eddie's family. “I’m just picking up on my way home tonight.” 

“I think he was in here a little while back … he seemed really confused about the list you’d given him.” 

_Shit, what are the odds?_

“He was,” Buck rolls his eyes and takes his receipt. “That’s why I’m taking back over on the shopping.” 

He picks up the bag and hurries for the door, ignoring the cashier’s goodbye in his rush. 

_Yeah, he’s just going to have to drive the extra 15 minutes next time._

**Author's Note:**

> End note: Drop a comment and let me know when you figured out what Eddie had done!


End file.
